Questions and life lessons from Jack Shephard
by Atomic Eyes
Summary: Responses to questions posed from Jack's POV. Variety of topics and people are dicussed. All taken from an online writing community responses by me.
1. Letter to Anyone about Anything

Write a letter to anyone about anything. 

**Say what you have always wanted to say but have been afraid to.**

Jack watched Sarah retreat up to their room at the hotel. His gaze turned back to the piano he's sitting in front of and he sighed heavily. After a minute he geot up and walked to the front desk.

"Hi could I get some paper and a pen?" He asked tiredly.

"Of course." The far too perky for this time of night receptionist smiled at him before handing him a couple of pieces of hotel stationary and a pen. 

"Thanks," Jack managed to bite out before grabbing a bottle of vodka from the bartender and heading out to the deck by the pool. He sets down the bottle and stares at the paper in front of him preparing to write his vows. Only he can't seem to figure out what he should say as he stands in front of his friends, his family and Sarah. He pulled out the copy of her vows he stole from their room and re-reads them over and over again. He sighed, opened the bottle of vodka, took a large swig and then began to write.

Dear Sarah,

There are so many things to say that never seem to get said. I don't know what keeps me from saying them, fear maybe. I'm afraid that I'll hurt you and I'm afraid that I won't. I'm afraid that I'll continue to be a disappointment to my father if I give up on something. I'm the most committed man you know right? Isn't that my problem? You know I'd never cheat on you, that I'd never do anything that would hurt you. I'm your savior, I fixed you and that's what I'm good at.

I'm not sure if I know what love is Sarah, I'm not sure if there's anything inside me capable of love. I know that I care about you, that there's something about you that has always made me smile. You could make me happy and everyone knows it. Even my mother likes you and she's never liked anyone I've ever brought home.

Sarah, you could make me happy but I don't know if I can make you happy. Sometimes I'm sure I'm a shell of a person, unrecognizable in the mirror. I didn't fix you Sarah, something else happened that day and I don't know what it was but it wasn't me. You know I don't believe in much but I've believed in you for 2 years. Is that enough? You've done so much for me, made me into someone I barely recognize because there was all that time when I was alone and the world was leaning on me so hard, so much pressure that I knew I'd break. I knew I'd fail.

I'm not good at failure and something about that day when you moved your toes changed me. I don't know if I'm good enough, if I can be the man you need. Sometimes … Sometimes I don't know if I want to be. I wonder if I'm with you for the wrong reasons. Did I ask you to marry me because I promised you – that you would dance at your wedding. When you were ok again there wasn't a wedding to dance at; so I gave you one.

I'm the most committed man you know, but you don't really know me because I haven't let you.

I don't think I can marry you Sarah. I don't think you _should_ marry me; you deserve someone who doesn't have to ask himself these questions. Someone who asks himself if he loves you the night before our wedding. Someone who can't even write his own goddamn vows because even though he gets the concept of vows he can't really say them; that's how committed I am.

It just isn't enough. I'm so sorry. 

Always,  
Jack

Jack dropped the pen, grabbed the bottle and drank, squeezed his eyes shut to quell the oncoming tears that he'd do anything to hold back. _He was committed_, he opened his eyes again picked up the paper and tore it in half before walking to a trash can and dropping the pieces into it.

He took another long drink from the bottle and sat down by the pool; he pulled off his shoes, socks and coat and threw them by the table he'd been sitting at. He hiked up his pants, sat down by the edge of the pool and stuck his feet in. Grabbing the stationary that held Sarah's vows he stared at her words scrawled on the page and sighed taking yet another drink.


	2. Who do you need to forgive?

**Who do you need to forgive?**

I need to forgive my father. I used to think my entire existence was dependant on him and what he thought of me. The worst thing about it was no one ever let me believe otherwise, not even my mother. It was always 'Jack, Don't let your father down' or 'Jack this is your fault' usually in response to one of his binges.

The last time I saw my father he was laying on a cold metal tablet in a Sydney Morgue. He ran away this time because his career was ruined; by what you might wonder? Me. I ruined my father's career, at least that's what he told me, it's what my mother told me.

You see he's a surgeon just like me, or maybe I'm just like him. I tried everything in my life to get him to be proud of me and nothing ever worked until finally I'd had enough. He drank a lot, my father, some times when he couldn't handle something in his life he'd disappear for weeks and then turn up again when he felt like it. I never understood how my mother justified being with him.

Once while I was working a nurse from the OR came to get me, she told me my father was working on a patient and his hands were shaking. So I went down to see how he was doing. I'll spare you the details but he screwed up, he cost the woman her life. Then he tried to convince me not to tell the board what had happened. I even remember what he said to convince me. 

_"I know I have been hard on you, but that is how you make a soft metal into steel. That is why you are the most gifted young surgeon in this city. And this, this is a career that is all about the greater good. I've had to sacrifice certain aspects of my relationship with you so that hundreds and thousands of patients will live because of your extraordinary skills. I know it's a long time coming. What happened yesterday, I promise you, will never happen again. And after all, what I've given. . . This is not just about my career, Jack. It's my life."_

He managed to convince me, that is until we were at the hearing and I found out the woman had been pregnant and my father had known it before he started working on her. It may not have been the right thing to do, but it was the only thing I could do. I told them my father had been drinking that day and his negligence was a direct factor in the woman's death.

That was it, his career was over.

Maybe it seems like this is a story where I want the forgiveness. It's not, not really, I used to think I needed to be forgiven by my father. Maybe it's because now, because of Sawyer of all people, I know that my father did forgive me. Really though I think it's because he's dead and I think I might hate him as much as I love him. There are things about myself I hate, things that have been engrained in me since the day I was born. 

I am my own man and I'm not trying to blame all my faults on my father. Christian Shephard was a cold man but he was just a man. I forgive him; I forgive him for dying before I got the chance to say goodbye.


	3. The strangest gift ever recieved

**What is the oddest gift you have been given?**

There was this little girl on my operating table a few years ago, her name was Anna, I only remember that because of what she said to me before she was taken away for surgery. She said "Dr. Jack, If I can walk again you can have my legs." At the time I wasn't really sure how to take it, she wasn't on any drugs and she'd been incredibly lucid since her accident yet she says something only another child might understand. 

Her surgery was long and gratefully she had an 89 chance of success. It was 10 hours that surgery and there were no complications, probably one of the easiest surgeries of my career, not very memorable despite that fact.

It was two days later when I came in to Anna's room to check up on her. I've been told more times that not that by bedside manner leaves something to be desired so as much as I want to comfort patients I generally let the nurses deal with the heart to heart stuff. It might sound a little insensitive by if you knew my father you might understand. The point is when I went to visit her there was a little sack next to her bed. Anna told me to look in it and so I did.

I pulled out these life-size pair of stuffed legs. Anna explained that her mother made her dolls all the time for her to play with; one of the dolls was another Anna. So she had her mother go home and take off Anna's legs for me.

I can't tell you what I felt; Anna had given me her legs.


	4. What are you happy about?

What are you happy about right now? 

Happiness is a bit on the relative side isn't it? Are we talking about the carefree part of life where you just feel like you can take on the world? I haven't felt like that in such a long time, probably not since I was a kid. It all goes back to the fact that I was born tense. Are we talking about the kind of happy that makes you smile without you even realizing it? Sometimes I think I feel that way but those moments are few and far between, or the happy to be alive? I am and I'm happy that Sawyer's doing better and Michael and Jin aren't hurt. There's another side to this happiness coin; Shannon's dead and Walt is missing. It's hard to let the happiness in when the dark cloud follows just behind it. The day Boone died Aaron was born, life for a life?

It's the simplistic kind of happiness that I feel most often, I'm not talking about things with huge consequences or hope for rescue. No, I'm talking about the little things – when Hurley gave everyone food from the hatch and you could see the looks on their face, that's happiness. When I played golf with Kate and managed to forget all the troubles the island held for just those few minutes. Happiness.

I can't really say I'm happy about anything in particular right now. I'm just happy about all the little things.


	5. What does Karma mean to you?

What does "karma" mean to you? 

Did Locke put you up to this? I don't believe in Karma or fate or destiny or any of that crap people spout off about. We make our own path in life and nothing changes that for us. All the talk of free will and destiny seem completely contradictory to me; if you have free will then your path can't be chosen for you. Karma's just the same; it's a way to keep people in line.

Everything you do has consequences but it doesn't determine the fate of the rest of your life. Good or Bad? It's complete crap.

If I believed in Karma I'd have to entertain the notion that this was meant to happen. All these people were meant to crash on the island. People were meant to die and I don't believe that. I can't believe that, if it's all determined then why the hell am I a surgeon? That's like saying nothing we do really matters anyway.

I heard someone here say that maybe we were all being punished for the things we've done in our past. I can't believe that.


	6. Letter to yourself as a child

What are you like in the morning? 

I've never had time to be cranky in the morning; never had the time to be lazy either. In school I was always up with the sun, dad's orders. College was the same and that was because of me not dad. Even after a late night of studying there was no excuse to be late to an 8 am class, I had a lot of 8 am classes. In med school you never really knew when it was morning or night. There was no night and day there was class, work, studying and sleep.

While I was in residency it was mostly the same, on call, in surgery or sleeping. Morning was relative in that time of my life. It wasn't when I woke up, it was when the sun rose and sometimes I hadn't been to sleep yet. Still there was no choice on how you could be when you woke up, you had to be ready, had to be alert otherwise people died. There is no question.

On the island it's mostly the same. Either I wake up to press a button that I'm not even sure why I'm pressing it or I have to deal with someone's rash or sprain and sometimes worse injuries. I just keep going, head to the beach and the caves and the hatch, try to keep order and then finally sleep and do it all over again the next day.


	7. Write about loosing control

Write about losing control. 

I could lie and tell you that I never lose control, that Doctors aren't afforded the ability to do so because we handle life and death situations every single day and losing control would be unprofessional. I could say that before the island I'd never had an instance where I was so out of my element that the world seemed to un-align and nothing was right. I could say all those things but I don't think even the most optimistic of you would believe me. I'm a cynic at heart so I could probably recount every single instance in my life where I've lost control of a situation or myself, but I'm not going to.  
I could actually tell you about all those times and there are many, but honestly for the post part in my life I've stayed in control, at least of myself. There are plenty of situations that just spiraled out of control so fast that I couldn't even blink and catch where **things went wrong**; My relationship with my father, my mother, my wife ex.

Like most people, I don't particularly like being out of control personally and I really don't like being in a situation where things are so crazy that you can't tell which way is up, yet I'm on an island where exactly that happens.

The thing about me is that I'm committed, when I decide on a task, I do it, I don't shirk my duty and I don't half ass it. I just do it and I do it to the best of my ability. Once I start something I finish it, I have to, who else will?

I guess I could go into all the instances when I've felt out of control on the island, but there are too many to name and I'm really not that interesting. 

This island is the epitome of losing control; for me anyway, nothing is the same, nothing is definite and everything changes by the moment. If I thought a plane crash was out of my control I was kidding myself, I figured once things settled down we'd be able to survive, find a way off (though I wasn't holding my breath) but getting settled was only the beginning of losing control.


	8. What do you see in the mirror?

**What do you think when you look in the mirror?**

I've never been one for cheating, but I'd like to steal Claire's answer. There aren't any mirrors on the island and if there are, it's safe to say that Shannon has them.

I guess you'd want me to talk about what I thought before the island? Or maybe speculate on what I'd probably think if I were to borrow one of Shannon's mirrors? I don't know if I want to do that. I think I've taken this introspection thing pretty well so far, I've opened up about things I wouldn't normally say or even think. That's good for me I'm sure, but I don't know if I want to contemplate what I used to think when I looked in the mirror.

There's a lot of things about myself that I'm ready to admit upfront and there are plenty that I'm not; I think this might be one of them. I looked in mirrors when it was necessary for grooming; otherwise I avoided them as much as possible. It has nothing to do with my self-image or any of that, I couldn't care less if I'm found attractive by the female population. I just don't want to face who would be looking back at me, especially now after the things I've had to do and the choices I've had to make.


	9. What are you like in the morning?

Jack,

I don't know what to tell you that would help. You are a stubborn kid; isn't that what your dad always says? I guess he is right on that point, you'll always be a bit stubborn, even though you'll always do what they say even when you don't want to. Believe it or not you'll like being a doctor; you'll never find anything else that makes you feel the way you will when you've saved someone's life. It'll be hard sometimes; you won't always be able to save everyone.

One day, actually more than one day but one day you'll have to choose between what's right and what dad wants you to do. Do the right thing, he's fallible, he's got problems and even though he'll say he blames you; he doesn't. Someone unexpected will tell you he forgave you.

Don't let Dad go to Australia, in fact, don't ever go to Australia and never fly on Oceanic. Stay away from the numbers: 4 8 15 16 23 42. I don't actually think either of us will ever believe in fate, but it doesn't hurt to be sure.

You don't need his approval or hers. In the end you have to live your life not them.

Don't marry Sarah; she deserves to have someone who really loves her not someone who can't be sure he's not just obligated. Don't let her waste years of her life on you. 

Don't make promises you can't keep. Don't do anything out of pure guilt, stay committed but don't let commitment cloud your judgment. Don't talk down to people, even if they seem to not know what their doing.

If you're ever in a plane crash, look out for polar bears. Warn Locke about the dangers of a plane hanging from a tree, he's crazy enough he'll believe you and then maybe Boone won't die. Search the island for other survivors, but be careful.

Talk to your father, he'll be gone one day and you won't know how to feel. So talk, don't yell, listen but don't take his word as law. You have your own mind. Use it. Never let him make you feel like you aren't worth it; one day you'll believe him.

If you ever meet someone named Kate Austen, you're in for a ride. Don't let her run away, but sinking is ok.

I still say don't ever go to Australia, but if Locke's right all roads end there anyway, so take medical supplies, batteries, a radio, anything you could use if you get stranded. You're life might be like a rabbit hole; don't resent it, just deal with things as they come and never write anyone off too soon. They might surprise you. 

Dr. Jack Shephard


	10. When were you not alone?

**Describe your worst failure.**

I'm familiar with failure. Some people who know me now like to think of me as perfect, I've been accused as such fairly recently actually. I'm the doctor or the hero. When I failed to save Joanna no one thought of it as a failure. I guess no one thought about Joanna.

I've had so many failures in my life that it would be impossible to recount them all and I don't know if there is a worst. Every life I failed to save in my career is a failure; every body that came across my table that I just couldn't fix was a failure. Most people wouldn't call it that, they'd say that I tried and that was all that mattered. I gave those people a fighting chance and the chance was what mattered. Gabriella said something like that to me after her father died on my table. I tried when no one else would. You know what goes through my mind every time someone says something like that to me? Yeah I tried, I tried and I failed.

My father always told me I didn't have what it took because I couldn't separate myself emotionally. I couldn't watch a little girl die on my table and then come home and have dinner and a scotch like nothing had happened. Maybe I shouldn't be a doctor because of that and maybe I'm a better doctor because of that. I don't really know and my father's opinion means so much less than it once did. Even if I always wanted him to be proud of me.

A while ago I probably would have said my marriage was my worst failure because I'd be putting all the deaths in perspective and trying to sort out my failures between personal and professional. My worst personal failure was not being able to keep my marriage together. Marc would argue on fault, Sarah was the one who cheated on me but I made it so easy. I wasn't there for her. The questions I asked myself before we got married were answered; I married her because I saved her life. I couldn't be the kind of husband I wanted to be.

My mother thinks I failed my father by not supporting him, by betraying him and telling the board he'd been under the influence in the surgery that cost a woman and her unborn child their lives. My reluctance to go after him is a failure and how I found him, it's my failure. While I stopped blaming myself for my father's death I know that I filed that instance away as a personal failure.

None of this is even since we've been on the island. I couldn't save Joanna, Boone, Shannon. Claire was kidnapped and I made it easier for that to happen by not listening to her. I failed Charlie. I failed Sayid by not convincing him that we'd help Shannon another way than by torturing Sawyer. I failed Sawyer (though not always feeling guilty about it) by standing by and watching it happen. I've failed everyone.

I failed Kate. I decided that I could protect her from harm and told her to stay put. I should have known better. She wanted to help and instead of letting her, arming her so she'd be safer I blew her off and put her in more danger. It doesn't matter that she was fine, she had a gun pointed at her throat and his finger was itching at the trigger while I was hesitating. Counting didn't help the fear this time; it's a stupid practice anyway.

We failed everyone by letting Sawyer play us. I can't blame one person; we all played into his hands. Locke, Me, Ana, Kate everyone; hysteria blinds people and so does fear. I just have to hope that Sawyer isn't low enough to have actually hurt Sun, that he took the opportunity that was presented to him and didn't have her attacked just to get the power and get back at me. It's not that I don't believe him capable because we are all capable of much more than we think ourselves capable of. As much as I don't like Sawyer I don't believe he's rotten to the core, I don't trust him and I think it was a mistake to ever consider doing so. The thing is, if Sawyer did plan his con from beginning to end it means that someone helped him, that someone else attacked Sun. It means someone is willing to hurt others for a reason that I can't even figure out.

I've always been something of a failure I'm not sure that's ever going to change.


	11. Describe a perfect evening

**What would constitute a "perfect" evening for you?**

I'd love nothing more than to not have to do anything, to not be responsible for anyone. If I could get through an entire night and not have anything catastrophic happen I'd be in heaven. There's really not much to do on the island, You've got the ocean, but since I couldn't save Joanna I don't really like to swim unless it's necessary. It might seem arrogant but these people need me, I don't want them to need me but they do and that's how the cookie crumbles.

I want to have a nice dinner, maybe some well cooked fish that Jin caught, I could barter some vodka off of Sawyer and have a drink, but not enough to drown in, I'm not my father. I'd love company, Kate's preferably and in my perfect evening she'd tell me all her secrets and wouldn't judge me for mine. I'd know exactly why she is the way she is and it would be comfortable, like those silences we have sometimes while sitting around the fire. 

So fish, vodka, peace and Kate; that's the evening of perfection. No interruptions or injuries no need to save someone's life for just one second. It's an odd kind of perfection, but that's my life for you.


	12. What do you regret not saying?

What is the thing you regret most NOT saying? 

Jack's never been good at expressing himself it's a trait he blames on his parents because they never let him express himself. He was steel to them, ready to be molded into the perfect figure of who they wanted him to be. Only he was never quite up to their standards and he'd realized sometime in the past 5 years that he never would. There's plenty of things that Jack regrets in general and plenty more things he regrets he didn't say.

_"Please stop drinking Dad,"_

He wonders if maybe he'd gotten up the nerve to say things like that; maybe, just maybe his father would have listened. Then that little bit of hope gets slammed shut because his father never listened to anyone and his father was dead.

_"No, I will not go looking for him,"_

His mother never helped anything; she used guilt to her advantage like she was Jewish or something. When really all she liked to do was take the responsibility away from her. He thinks maybe he wasted too much of his discontent on his father's memory and not enough on his mothers.

_"I can't do this, I'm sorry Sarah,"_

Maybe if he'd just walked away he'd have saved her some heartbreak, maybe she could have been happy for those two years instead of waiting for him to find his place among the thorns. Maybe if he'd shown less compassion, maybe if he hadn't gotten so caught up in the idea – maybe she wouldn't look back on his memory now with a bitter taste in her mouth. Maybe her dreams would have come true.

_"Can I sink too?"_

Jack's never been good at expressing himself; he's never been able to convey to people how much they mean to him. He thinks a lot of that has to do with the fact that he's insecure enough about his feelings and he can never seem to sort them out. How do you express that you need someone anyway? He's never really been able to do that, never say what he's feeling, never ask for help. He was taught that it made you appear weak; he was suppose to be molded steel.


	13. What do you do to relax?

**What's your favorite thing to do to relax?**

I think I was born tense. I'm not sure I've ever felt relaxed, maybe you think that's impossible but when I look back on my life and I try to remember a time when I just took time out and let everything else go; I come up empty.

In college I tried to go with the flow, do the party thing that my friends raved about, I'd drink a little flirt with some girls and then go home and study because I had to make good grades and had to get into med school. If you're at a party to relax and all you think about is everything you have to do when you get home does that even count as trying? Med school was the same thing.

Or maybe I know that if I give in and take the easy way, if I drown myself in something that will make everything else fade away, I'll be just like him. Don't get me wrong I drink, I drink on planes when I'm stressed out and I certainly drink when I'm worried about something or mulling over a personal problem but I see what it did to my father. He drank himself to death and I saw it coming a long time before he disappeared the first time. This last time he just didn't make it back.

So I can't and won't give into the one thing that might actually loosen me up a bit. Still, I stick by the thought that I was born tense.


	14. What are you ashamed of?

Talk About Something You Did That Made You Feel Ashamed Of Yourself Afterwards. 

**Shame** noun: 1. **(a)** a painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace. **(b)** Capacity for such a feeling: _Have you no shame?_ 2. One that brings dishonor, disgrace, or condemnation. 3. A condition of disgrace or dishonor; ignominy. 4. A great disappointment.

It's kind of funny, I think everything I've ever done in my life that didn't meet up to my father's standards started me in on this thing we call shame. A disappointment, I was the brightest student in med school, one of the youngest surgeons on staff and it was never enough. I was never enough and after a while I started to resent him and my mother because all she ever did was show him newer, crueler ways to emphasize his disappointment.

"It's a shame about your divorce Jack."

So all in all my life was filled with shame; I don't know how much of it I actually felt towards my own actions. I wasn't ashamed that I got a 99 on a test and not a 100, I wasn't ashamed of things that my father seemed to think I should be.

But do I know shame? Am I ashamed? There are too many things to count, my marriage fell apart and I have no idea why. I think if I sat down and thought about it maybe I could find the reason, like it should be obvious to me, but honestly I don't want to do that.

My father died in Australia, he drank himself to death and my mother had sent me there to find him because he was off on another one of his benders. After what I did, this is what my mother said. Yeah, for all intensive purposes I cost my father his career but he cost it, not me, he chose to go into surgery after drinking, not me. I'm not going to blame myself anymore for that. Yet I went after him, out of guilt.

He died and I had to do everything, alone in Australia I had to make the arrangements. I needed it to be done, I needed to take him home and burry him. I needed it to be over and done with and I needed to go on with my life. I had to stop thinking about why he was there, I had to block out my mother's voice over the phone and that tone, and she blamed me. He blamed me; it was always my fault, everything that went wrong in their lives I was the cause of. I'm not trying to gather sympathy here, it's my life and I've dealt with it long enough. 

I just needed it to be done; the hearse was going to be waiting at LAX and going straight to the cemetery. It was all planned out in advance, only I couldn't get past customs. There was a problem with the documentation and they weren't going to let my father's corpse on the plane.

I don't know what possessed me to leave him behind. I think I just had to have it done; I had to get on that plane and go back to living. Maybe that's callous or maybe it's what anyone would have done in my position. Funny that all I wanted was for it to be done and now? Now it never will be and I'm ashamed that I left my father behind, dead or not. Just because he would have done it to me, I shouldn't have done it to him; I'm not him.

** note:** I know there are differing opinions on what actually happened to Christian Sheppard's body. Some people believe his body was taken or eaten (ew) but I made the assumption from _White Rabbit_ that Jack actually left the body in Australia. I could be wrong, but it's my interpretation so I'm going with it.


	15. What do you want know one to know?

**What is the one thing about yourself that you don't want anyone ever to know?**

It seems simple enough, we all have secrets. I'm ashamed of the fact that I'm the reason my father was in Sydney, where he died. I hate that I could 'perform miracles' on patients so that they could walk or retain their motor functions, yet I couldn't even make a marriage work. I feel crazy sometimes when I think about how I found the caves in the first place. What is it that Locke said? down the rabbit hole?

Really though what I don't want anyone to know is probably the most obvious thing about me. I don't have any clue what I'm doing. I walk around this island like I have some kind of purpose. I don't, all I know is that I can't let people die. I'm the leader? Is that what it is? I don't want to be the leader or the hero, and yet that's exactly the position everyone puts me in. 

If they all knew that I was flying blind what kind of hero would I be to them? I was a disappointment to my wife, my parents, why not to the entire island. I think I fear that more than I fear dying and maybe that should tell me something. Everything would be simpler if I could just accept my place, but I don't want that place; if I embrace it what happens when the truth comes out?


	16. Talk about a chance encounter

Describe a chance encounter that changed your life. 

I never really thought about chance encounters, I'm sure I've had plenty that I never considered to be much of anything. Everything changed when flight 815 crashed, then again if everything hadn't changed after a plane crash I might be a little worried about life before.

I'd been running around on autopilot, moving wreckage off a man's severed leg, helping a pregnant woman, giving CPR and trying to make sense of the carnage I saw around me. Who know how doing all that had made my own small injury worse but I found my bag, the vodka from the plane and a sewing kit and tried to find a quiet place in the jungle to assess the damage. It wasn't until I got my shirt off and attempted to take a look at the gash in my back that I realized there was no way I could fix it myself. Exhaustion was starting to take over and the thought of going back out to the disaster area that was the beach to find someone to help me just made me more tired.

Then she walked through the trees rubbing her wrists and I asked her if she could sew. After Kate's initial reaction to the idea of sewing up a large wound on my back she went to work. I remember the conversation with clarity, she asked me why I didn't seem scared and I told her about my take on fear, the counting.

How did that change my life? I guess you could say the first real bond I made on this god forsaken Island was with Kate and ever since then no matter what happened or what I found out about her, I haven't been able to break it. I tried for a while because of fear and anger (and maybe a little bit of jealousy) but it never seemed to go away.

I think Kate managed to sew some of herself into me that day.


	17. What iswas your childhood ambition

What was/is your childhood ambition? 

I think this should probably be the most obvious answer I've ever given. I wasn't one of those kids whose dreams changed as he grew up. I never wanted to be a fireman or a fighter pilot; I always wanted to be a doctor. Why? Because I have never wanted to be anything else. Even though my father was hard on me when I was a kid, I still looked up to him more than anyone else and I thought that what he did was the best thing anyone could ever do. At the time I don't think I knew exactly what he did just that he saved people's lives.

I wanted to be a good man like my father and a good doctor like him. It didn't matter that he was hard on me or that sometimes as I was growing up I questioned my reasons. Once it stopped being about my father and started being about me I think I realized how much I actually wanted to be a doctor for my own reasons. Reasons that I can't even begin to explain in a way that will make any sense to anyone. I used to joke about it in med school, it's never easy being a doctor's kid at a school where the professors used to work with your parent, nor is it easy when your residency starts in the hospital where your father is chief. Everyone said it being a good surgeon must be in the gene's. I always hoped it wasn't.


	18. What does comfort mean to you?

What does "comfort" mean to you? 

Comfort is long silences while the waves are rolling in against the beach; it's sitting by a fire and eating mangos that were recently picked. Comfort comes to us in many different ways, sometimes it's overt and someone is literally trying to be there, giving you a shoulder or an out a way to keep moving without letting grief swallow you whole. Sometimes comfort is sitting on a plane knowing that customs has let your father's casket on board and you're going to be home in a few hours.

For some people, like my father, comfort is a full bottle of Jack Daniels and disappearing to random corners of the world. Comfort is different things to different people. Honestly for me I was rarely comforted. My dad gave me this advice the night before my wedding and it didn't help me, he would tell me things meant to comfort and I'd just stare at him wondering if he knew the definition of the word.

Comfort to me is the kind of silence that never gets awkward; always with someone who for some inexplicable reason just has to look at you for you to believe that everything is going to be ok. Even when there's only evidence to the contrary and you know that despite that feeling nothing will be ok. Comfort is in a look shared before a raggedy bag is placed over your head.


	19. What's the most dangerous thing

What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done? 

I've never really lived a dangerous life, like any guy I've had my share of thrill seeking adventures most of them right around the time I turned 30 but nothing too dangerous. I went sky-diving once and that's considered dangerous by a large number of sane and rational people but it was also a lot of fun. I think getting on flight 815 was pretty dangerous but not an actively dangerous decision. So I'm not sure that would apply.

I think almost every decision I've made since we crashed could be considered dangerous depending on how you view the situations. Some people would say trusting Kate is dangerous; luckily I'm not one of those people. I know trusting Sawyer is potentially dangerous and that's probably why as a general rule I don't take him at face value. Actually if you want to get technical trusting anyone on this island could be considered dangerous.

Every day is dangerous here. Walking into the jungle is dangerous; there is a monster, the others, animals, rocks to fall from and everything else that could happen on an island or in a jungle. There are numerous things that happen here on a daily basis, situations we get thrown into and situations we throw ourselves into.

I guess if I had to pinpoint one extremely dangerous thing I've done since we crashed on this island it would be running into the jungle half-cocked looking for John Locke. Sure there were plenty of instances after that, which might be worse in certain ways. Like going after Michael, which almost got Kate killed, but when I went after John I wanted blood, it was dangerous on more levels than just psychical danger, emotional danger was there too. If I'd found him that day, covered in Boone's blood, I don't know what I would have done or what it would have done with me.


	20. Fourtune

Fortune 

_Fortune favors the bold._

The mantra echoed inside of his head, it taunted him like a cruel child on the play ground that'd just found out his greatest weakness. Jack wasn't bold, his father liked to remind him of that anytime he got. Taking chances wasn't in his wiring; he liked to pick his battles and rarely played if he couldn't win. At least that was what his father thought of him. Then again it seemed as though his father had a lot of theories about him, none of which Jack even thought to be true. Christian knew all though, so Jack was never in any place to argue with his father. He was just the molded steel; maybe the mold had been wrong after all.

He wondered what his father would think of him now, was taking a gun out into the jungle to work a deal with a psychopath considered brave? Would his father think so? What about his mom? Or Sarah? How about Mark?

Kate thought he was crazy or maybe just desperate but that didn't stop her from coming with him. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't wonder if he'd really gone crazy over two months ago when he'd followed the white rabbit into the jungle. He wondered if the actions he considered necessary were bold, brave? Or was he just beating a dead horse.

**Fortune favors the brave.**

Jack never considered himself brave, not when he screamed himself hoarse trying to find 'the others' or any other time on this island when he'd put his life at risk. He was still here, was that his fortune? Was it fortunate?


	21. Loyalty

Loyalty 

I thought I knew loyalty. It was almost predisposed between the survivors; I expected it even after Sawyer showed us all that loyalty and survival were not mutually exclusive. When you crash land on an island and the world you live in turns out to be really strange you find that you do have loyalties and you slowly begin to realize where they lie.

All of that changed when Michael came back. Here was a man who I'd taken off head first into the jungle to find. I'd put my life in danger – along with Sawyer's life and John's life. Kate was captured and they held a gun to her throat, used her as a bargaining tool against us. All of that for Michael and Walt. There was a kind of relief that came over me when Michael stumbled into the clearing where Kate and I sat – though a little frustration was also present. He was alive and the worry about his safety faded away. We trusted him. It was Michael, he'd built the raft, made sure the caves were ok and we had no reason not to trust him.

Only we didn't have a reason to trust him beyond the camaraderie all of us had come to have over the past two months. The trust we put in him he betrayed, more than betrayed he obliterated it to pieces, thousands of tiny pieces. He murdered Ana-Lucia and Libby in cold blood and then he lied about it. He watched us all worrying about Henry getting away and coming back to get us. He watched us grieve for these people who we barely knew and he pretended like he just wanted to get his son. He did just want to get his son and he didn't care who he hurt in the process.

I can't understand what it's like to loose a child, to have them ripped out of your arms. I can't understand that, but I can try. I know it has to be horrible, the feelings of powerlessness, the way you can't stop thinking about the person. I've never lost a child but I've lost people close to me, I've had to watch helplessly as people I cared about were hurt and taken from me. It doesn't excuse murder. 

And then, he leads us directly into a trap. He makes sure Kate, Sawyer, Hurley and I are exactly where the others want us. He literally turned us over to them. I had to watch as he and Walt sailed off in the sunset and as Hurley was set free and struggled to decide what to do. I was there on my knees with a gag in my mouth and I nodded at Hurley that he should go, do what they told him to because otherwise I was afraid they'd kill him; if they weren't planning it to begin with. I watched as they put a ratty bag over Kate's head and I realized that there are no loyalties on this island.

There is only survival.


	22. What in life are you missing?

Missing 

What don't I miss? There are all kinds of little things that I miss every single day. My best friend Mark used to call me every Thursday to go play basketball at this old park and I miss that and him. Despite the problems I had with my father I miss him more than I can say, my mother too, even if her last words to be were said with disappointment. I even miss Sarah sometimes even though she hurt me and even though I know deep down that we never should have gotten married in the first place.

I miss Starbucks coffee and fresh strawberries. I miss feeling safe on a daily basis and the way I feel after a surgery that went really well. I miss my car and driving down a long stretch of road just to feel the wind on my face. I miss relaxation or at least attempting it, I miss my bed and my favorite t-shirt.

More recently I miss comfortable silences and knowing that I'm not alone but I think that might be resolved fairly soon. Even more so I miss not needing a gun to protect myself.

I miss a lot about the civilized world, like being in it.


	23. Talk about your mother

Write about mother (your own or someone else's). 

My mother. Sometimes I honestly think she's worse than my father, she drank just like he did, just never quite to the extent that he did. I wonder about their relationship sometimes, like how they could even stand to look at each other. By the time I was facing my own wedding I was damn sure my parents didn't love each other, my father was good enough at pretending but it was like my mom had just given that up all together.

The last time I saw her she told me it was my responsibility to go find my father in Australia, I could easily blame her for being on that plane but I think I've finally gotten over the part of my life when I blamed my parents for everything. Not that I don't blame them but I'd like to think that I only blame when they are actually to blame. It's kind of funny, she blamed me for him leaving. She always blamed me for when he disappeared but this time she made sure I knew. She made sure that I had to look her in the eye and see that if something happened to him while he was gone, if he forgot his medicine that it would be my fault. She made sure I knew that if I didn't go she'd never forgive me.

As much as I hated my father, I think I always hated her more. As much as I loved her I hated her too. I can't help but blame her for the years she sat back and watched. I want to think the best of her that he'd just pushed her too far and she couldn't take it anymore; but she still just sat there while he told me I'd never be good enough. Told me I wasn't much of a man, she didn't even come to my wedding because she found something more important to do.

My mother was just a woman, I know that, but she could have been more of a mother.


	24. It was one of those days

**It was one of those days...**

My father's body wasn't going to clear customs; I'd been missing work for over two weeks. My mother had, in no uncertain terms, woken me up at the crack of dawn with a phone call telling me that everything that had gone wrong in her life was my fault most recently being my father's death.

And then the plane crashed.

I wake up in a jungle, a large gash in my back and I was alone. I made my way to the beach and there was the fuselage with screaming people around it. It was horrific and the only thing I could do was let instinct take over. The Doctor in me pushed the man aside so I could deal with it later. I helped a man trapped, a pregnant woman and then gave CPR to someone else. Names and faces barely registered. The engine exploded and then the wing fell and I finally got a moment to breathe.

I processed the ordeal while Kate reluctantly stitched the gash in my back. The night came and went and there was no rescue and then we heard the noise in the jungle.

Bad day.


	25. Who was the one that got away?

Who was "the one that got away"? 

I don't think there as been a woman in my life that I'd consider "the one that got away". I didn't date that much in High School and in College I had a long time girlfriend who gave up on me half way through medical school. Once I was done with med-school there wasn't really time to fall in love or anything like that. Sarah certainly got away but in the context of the question I wouldn't say that she applies, there was so much more and less about that relationship that I haven't even started dealing with but she just didn't slip away, I pushed her and let her go without ever realizing it.

As for now, it would be hard for anyone just to get away on this island. I feel the push/pull now more than ever. The stakes are high and trust is low. 

I guess it all depends on what you mean by getting away, some people are more inclined to run and in a way, I've already let that happen. Lucky for me, there's no way off this island at the moment. Head start or not, I might just catch up.


	26. How do others percieve you?

Perception: Generally speaking, how do you think others perceive you? 

How do people see me? That's a question I've asked myself too many times in my life. Maybe it's because I have a deep seeded need to change for people; I think that stems from wanting to be the son my parents wanted or the doctor. I always wonder what people really see when they look at me, is it the man, the doctor, the hero? I've never really known who any of those people really are. I think it's hard to know who you are when you've got something to hide.

I think I know what they see here on this island. They don't see the man I am; they see the hero. Saving lives for a living, or the attempt thereof, is something people see as noble. I wish I could say that's the main reason I became a doctor but it isn't. Pressure from my parents, pressure from myself; those are the reasons I became a doctor.

Yet here, all people see is the hero. Because of my actions from the crash on, I've been put on this pedestal that I know one day I'm going to fall from. One day in the jungle Kate told me she was sorry she wasn't as perfect as me or as good. I couldn't forget that day if I tried, even without those words, still it sticks out in my mind as the day I realized how many people have that image of me. Perfect? Hardly. I try to do what I believe is right but I've never been more than just Jack.

Hero? I wish.


	27. If there were no consequences

Write About Pain. 

I've seen people in pain everyday since I became a doctor. From children with broken bones to war vets addicted to morphine. I've seen people break down from the weight of bad news and I've seen people lash out because they don't understand what's happening to someone they love. I've seen a woman so scared of her prognosis she was in actual pain from the stress she was putting on her body. I've seen a boy in a wheelchair cry because his leg hurt, not because of the pain but because it hurt – he could feel it.

I think that boy was one of the most eye opening cases. He was actually moved to tears and so happy that he could feel his pain than I've ever been in my entire life. It reminded me of my father in some strange way. He went through life numbing himself to the reality of it. He didn't want to feel the weight of his decisions and his life anymore so he drank and he kept drinking until he was completely unrecognizable. It made me wonder, can the ghost of a man feel the pain he brought on himself in life? I think that's what made me stop drinking whiskey when I got home from work everyday. Life wasn't easy, especially after Sarah left and even more when my father disappeared; but I wanted to feel it. If I didn't I was afraid I'd become like him or that I'd just be taking the fact that I could feel it for granted.

On this island pain is everywhere. From the emotional depths of us, beating down our spirit with each life that's lost and every day that goes by without rescue. I see people here in pain from infection and fear. Stress bringing on hives and headaches and there's nothing I can do. Sometimes I want to tell them to feel it because once they stop feeling it they won't be living anymore. No one wants to simply exist even in a place like this.

Now I'm afraid for them, of the panic that comes without someone there to turn to when you're baby's crying all night or when the headaches get so bad you can barely see anymore. I've been the reluctant touch stone for so long now I'm more worried about them than myself. The hopelessness battling with helplessness that's been baring down on us from the beginning.

I'm not alone but that almost makes things worse. Trying to say everything I couldn't say before with a look, it was painful. Trying to think as fast as I could to come up with something to make it right, to get out of what was happening. There was nothing. I always thought I was familiar with pain, just like fear, then we crashed and things happened on this island that made me redefine everything I know.

Now everything's changed again and I don't think all the pain we've endured so far will even cover what's to come and that terrifies me.


	28. Soundtrack to your life

**Put together the soundtrack of your life. List the songs and the artists(if you are using a cover of the song make sure you include the cover artists name instead of the original) in the order you would put them on a cd. Most cds hold about 18 songs, but we're asking you list between 10-20 songs.**

I've never had much time for music but before Hurley's batteries died he swore up and down that I had to listen to half his Cd's so I blame a good deal of this on Hurley. Though I do refuse to explain my selections; I'm going to get enough crap from Sawyer as it is.

1. Maybe I'm Amazed by Paul McCartney  
2. Echo by Incubus  
3. The New York Times by Everclear  
4. Bastard by Ben Folds  
5. Ugly by Sevendust  
6. Our Finest Year by Better than Ezra  
7. Fix You by Coldplay  
8. Black and Blue by Counting Crows  
9. What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie  
10. Wheel in the Sky by Journey  
11. Happy by the Rolling Stones  
12. Interstate Love Song by Stone Temple Pilots  
13. I don't want to spoil the party by The Beatles


	29. Talk about family

**Tell us about family - what does family mean to you?**

I think I talk about my family a lot actually. Sometimes I wish they didn't shape the way I see the world or how I react to situations but they do. Maybe if I'd gotten away from them completely everything would have turned out differently. Instead I stayed in L.A. and worked at the hospital where my father was the chef surgical resident. I saw him just about every day and made the mistake of going to him for advice on difficult cases.

When I was a kid my father would tell me who I was going to be. He'd tell me that I could or couldn't handle this or that. There was something about that which made me hate him at a young age, I'm not sure I ever recognized that what I felt for him was hatred until around college. It didn't matter that I was at the top of my class he'd always find a way to bring me down and one day I decided I wasn't going to care anymore. I only wish it had been that simple. His voice haunts me to this day, every decision I make I hear him telling me I could do it better or that I should have done it this way or that way.

The saddest part of it all is that I always wanted to make him proud, even when I knew the task was impossible. It was the same with my mother she'd either side with him or give it to me worse than he did. I always wanted their approval and I can't really remember the last time I got it.

When I saw my father's body I broke. It was part despair and part relief neither of which I was entirely comfortable feeling. When I couldn't get him on the plane it was like the world was pressing down on me and all I could hear was his voice: "You can't even get me home Jack. You can't even get me home."

Family. Isn't that suppose to be made up of the people who support you? I never really had one.


	30. Talk about loosing control

**Talk about losing control**.

I feel like my ultimate loss of control is crashing on this island. I've got plenty of reasons to feel this way. I've always been called something of a control freak and while I don't think I'm quite that bad I will admit to wanting to be in control of most situations. Maybe it's the doctor in me that needs that control but nonetheless I need it. This island doesn't allow for anyone to be in control of anything. We can't control who we surround ourselves with or what we eat, where we live. We have no choice but to use what we have to survive. 

There are the others that have supposedly taken away the control we have over our freedom. We can't cross the so called line and we have to be afraid of being killed or kidnapped. People see things and do things on this island they wouldn't normally do. 

Since we've been here I've handled guns more in two months than in my entire life and all for survival. I've spent hours walking through the jungle on treks to find this, that or the other and none of it has gotten us any closer to getting off the island. In fact most of us have given up all hope of getting off this island. Loosing hope is a loss of control, loosing focus is too. 

We're lost and we've lost a lot. Including control.


	31. Letter to Santa or whoever

**Not everyone believes in Santa, but say that you did believe in him or some sort of entity that could grant your biggest wish. What would you wish for? Write a letter to Santa, a fairy godmother, a genie in the bottle, God, or anyone or anything you believe that has the power to grant this wish. Keep in mind that they will receive millions of letters so make sure the one you write captures their attention.**

Dharma Initiative, 

I'm not above writing a letter to Santa but considering I'm stranded on an island with various threats around every turn I figure I'm going to write to the only possible hope of survival, which so far has come in form of this damn hatch. The button I somehow let Locke talk me into pushing every 108 minutes. I only consider the hatch as possible salvation because someone put it there, you actually and I'm putting a bit of faith (god forbid) into the idea that maybe someone will come back to check on this little experiment. 

The experiment by the way that I'm still convinced is based on human nature and we're like rats in a cage pressing a button for the simple reason to press it. You are all probably watching a satellite feed writing down notes about all of us and it's just to see if we will press the button.

Also, the hatch is part of the reason Sawyer is actually alive, to which I'm grateful for, even if he'd never believe that.

So what I want for Christmas? The Dharma Initiative to come check on their little island and get us off of it. I'd be nice if you could do something about Kate's status as a fugitive as well, I wouldn't want to have to tell the world about this little experiment in detail.

Jack


	32. Cast your lifetime movie

**Cast the Lifetime movie based on your life and tell us about it. You can give us a brief synopsis of the major plot points, tell us about the dramatic climax, or even write a scene from it. Remember this is only based loosely on the real events of your life so take as many liberties as you want with it.**

I'm not so sure a movie about my life would be all that great. Though my luck someone would license something entirely untrue. The world would see jack Shepard as some hero, the lone doctor on a tropical island who saved the day. They'd leave out how I lost Joanna, the Marshall. They'd make my attempts to save the ones we lost far more heroic than the truth. What movie is about truth though? Honestly, based on a true story means nothing these days. It means that they had this idea but the rest of it was up for grabs.

I'd probably be played by some two-bit actor who's much younger than I am. They'd pair me up with Kate because how much more heroic could someone be if they can look past the 'criminal' element? They'd characterize her wrong; they'd characterize our relationship wrong; making it a romantic tide into the direction of forgiveness and redemption of which Kate needs neither. It would all be contrived and everyone would have a personality that doesn't match who they are. The dynamics of the island would be skewed. Sawyer would probably be pitted as my enemy while Hurley and Charlie provided nothing but comic relief. When all three of them are so much more than what they'd be typed as; screw lifetime and its movies.

They'd make it seem like the islanders were useless unless I was around because that's what they do. They stylize these heroes and make them bigger than what they were, they'd try to show the real man but it wouldn't work. It would be trite and inaccurate and probably piss everyone on the island off.

So I don't want a movie made about my life; I'm not that hero and I never wanted to be. People may need a leader but they are the ones living and surviving. I exist on this island, doing the job that needs to be done and that does not make me any better than anyone else here. I don't want to think anymore about what popular opinion would be because I just don't care. As much as I might want to get away from all this sometimes, I don't like to think about what life will/would be like after rescue.


	33. Who is your role model?

**Who do you look up to more than anybody else? Everybody has a role model - take a few minutes to pay tribute to yours.**

When I was naive enough not to know the kind of man my father really was I always looked up to him. I wanted to be the kind of surgeon he was and I wanted to be the kind of man he was. He always had a drink in his hand but it never occurred to me that he was never the kind of man he could have been. Somewhere along the line my feelings developed into being the kind of man he wasn't. I still wanted to be a surgeon but I wanted to be better than him, not pulled down by the weight of his addiction. I wanted to show him that the man he wanted me to be existed but I don't know if I wanted that for me or for him.

Now, I look back on my life and wonder who I admire enough to be a role model. I barely thought about it, I never really had time but I guess I'd have to say Amy. She was a patient, eight years old if I remember correctly and she has to be the bravest person I've ever met in my life.

I've never had much of a bedside manner, as if that's not obvious enough to most people, so telling an eight year old that her chances of never walking again were slim was probably one of the hardest conversations I've ever had as a doctor. Instead of crying she just smiled at me and said "You'll do your best though Dr. Jack, I know it," I assumed she didn't understand exactly what was going on but she spoke with the kind of conviction I've never heard in anyone before or since.

I wish I could say I was able to fix Amy but I couldn't, the damage to her spine was irreversible. I went to check on her after the operation and she just smiled at me again and said, "Thank you for trying Dr. Jack, but wheels aren't so bad. I bet I could race Jimmy Miller and win now."

It was the simplicity of her reaction and the feeling that maybe not fixing her hadn't been failing her that made her an unforgettable patient. If I could ever want to be like anyone I know it would be Amy Richmond, fearless and optimistic in a way that I've never known.


	34. Write about pain

**  
Whether you're losing your religion, or finding your faith again, tell us, about religion. **

Going to church as a child was something I did to appease my parents. Maybe my lack of faith stems from the fact that they themselves never truly believed. The foundation that I had in religion was always somewhat fake to me. I never felt the need to believe, I never wanted to believe and eventually I just couldn't believe. I got married in Hawaii, outside, by a priest; in front of god and family and friends. That was the extent of my religion as an adult. I never went to church, I never found myself in the chapel at the hospital praying for the strength to get through a 17 hour surgery. I never did any of those things that someone might have expected from me.

I've never been a man of faith and I don't think I ever will be. The things I believe in, with an exception or two, are provable. I can sit there and find the facts to back them up. I believe in science and occasionally I find myself believing in people. Some would say that's a form of faith in itself but I'm not so sure. Then again faith in something doesn't suppose belief, and faith doesn't suppose religion either.

I live in a world that is completely unexplainable. Things come and they go, people die and now I sit with a bag over my head straining to hear Kate and Sawyer. It would be hypocritical of me to start praying now but I've actually considered it. Though I doubt I'll let the fear take me to that place, if I'd believed God existed before this island would have caused me to loose that belief. There is no God, especially here.

I never lost my religion because I never actually had it.


	35. What's your biggest pet peeve?

What is your biggest pet peeve? 

Nicknames.

Nicknames suppose a certain comfort that you have with someone. When you give a nickname or you receive one it's generally because you share a mutual level of friendliness with someone. Lately however, anytime I hear someone being referred to as 'Muhammad' or 'Freckles' or anything like that it just bugs me.

Some people might say I want a shiny new nick name of my own and believe me, that really isn't the case. 'Doc' by the way, isn't an original nickname to give a doctor. Honestly, with the kind of creativity Sawyer's shown himself capable of, I expected better than that. And no Sawyer this isn't an invitation to wrack that brain of yours to come up with something creative; I really don't care.

During my surgical internship there was this guy, he was a cocky bastard, and he always liked giving everyone nicknames. The attendings, the residents, the chief, the nurses and the patients; oh yeah and especially his fellow interns. He never bothered to get to know someone long enough to really know them. When he'd walk into an old woman's room and give her a cute little name to make her feel at ease with him it was fake. He couldn't care less about that woman and as soon as he walked out of the room he'd mutter 'grandma' or 'old bag' and keep on going about his day like he wasn't a heartless bastard.

No, this isn't a story to reveal that I think Sawyer should be equated with the heartless bastard intern I worked with. In case you're wondering. I just don't like nicknames. My name is Jack and that's


	36. Decribe a dream you've had

**Describe a dream that you've had. How did the dream make you feel?**

Jack's never been a fearful kind of guy; he's always had a pretty level head. He's the one who rolls his eyes in horror movies because the killer is so very obvious to him. He's had his share of fights over spoiling a movie for his friends, his dates or whoever happened to be around when he mocked the heroine or hero. After a while people just stopped going to scary movies with him.

However, fear has its way of creeping up when you least expect it. Like on an island infested with polar bears, others, and crazy women who make no sense at all.

Jack's never been much of a dreamer, in undergrad and med school there usually was not enough time to get through the stages of sleep. Dreams were often interrupted if he managed to get them at all; it had been like that on the island so far; that is until Sawyer, Michael & Jin returned to camp. Since then he's been having the same dream over and over again.

It's actually a pretty stupid dream if you ask him, maybe he'd seen castaway too many times but the dream started out with him sitting by the old wreckage of the fuselage, he's talking to someone but he can't make out who. He always feels like he's on the outside looking in and he can barely hear his own voice talking about how to deal with hives with the lack of medicinal supplies available on the island. It's like a movie when his vision pans out further and Jack sees that he's talking to a golf bag; the one Hurley found weeks ago. He listens to an entire conversation that seems like a routine checkup if it weren't for the inanimate object he was talking to. He wakes up every time to the soft swooshing of the cave's mini-waterfall and sits up.

All he can really think is that he's gone absolutely insane and that doesn't make him feel any different than any other day.


	37. Talk about love

**With Valentine's Day around the corner we want you to think about love. Who do you love? What does it do to you? Does it lift you up like a bad cheesy power ballad? Does it destroy you? What does love do to you? What has it done to you in the past?**

Love is a funny thing. I was never really sure of it in my life. My parents were anything but the model couple. My father drank scotch for breakfast instead of OJ and after a while my mom drank a little Orange Juice with her Vodka and I'm not sure either of them ever understood the concept of love let alone the emotion itself.

I remember the night before my wedding my father asked me if I loved Sarah. Without hesitation I said 'Absolutely' and then he proceeded to tell me that commitment made me tick but I had a problem letting go. He wasn't wrong but neither was I. I never understood the distinction between loving someone and being in love with someone. When people told me there was I difference I asked how, why. I'm a doctor and looking at things I can't see or touch is always hard for me. Love was always something elusive until I met Sarah, I never had a problem with attachment, sometimes I latch on to people and never want to let go. Only that's not love, I didn't lie on my wedding day when I told Sarah I loved her and I always would; I did and I will.

I'm not sure when the distinction became apparent to me. As a doctor its hard not to care for your patients, their lives are in the palm of your hands and when they look at you and tell you it's ok if you can't fix them? It only makes you want to work that much harder. My father always said I cared too much, I didn't have what it took because I let myself feel too much and when I failed it killed another small piece of me. I guess he was afraid the molded steel he was making me into couldn't stand the weight of failure; failure that was sure to happen. In a way I've loved every patient that's come across my table, yet watching someone I'm close to in pain or danger is something else all together.

Being in love is something different than loving someone. Being in love makes the entire world melt away when that person is near. Being in love is the most terrifying experience on earth. Being that scared is insane, it's the kind of feeling that blinds you and socks you in the gut because you're so afraid. Sometimes people get hung up on what happens if it doesn't work and I think maybe the real problem, maybe for me at least, is what if it does. Being in love makes you crazy and it's the dichotomy of emotions; amazing and horrible all at the same time.

Love.

It's one of those things that no one can really ever understand, even if it's got its claws so deep into you.


	38. What have you learned from your past?

**What is one thing you have learned from your past?**

People you love will let you down. That's something I had to learn the hard way, along with the fact that you can never live up to what everyone else wants. You have to just be yourself and do what you want and hope that's enough to get you through life. No one is going to live it for you. All those years I spent trying to prove something to my father and I never had any chance. His expectations were too high and I was never going to live up to them.

Then again I guess he was never going to live up to mine. Not that my expectations are unrealistic, all I ever wanted was to know that he cared. I wanted him to be there and be interested in my life beyond becoming the doctor he bragged I would be. I wanted him to not drink everyday away until he was unrecognizable to the people that loved him. Maybe I wanted too much but he let me down. They all let me down.

I guess I also learned that you just have to deal with that and move on. You can't dwell on the past or it will tear you down. Not that I always practice what I preach. Unless you call chasing a phantom through the jungle as letting go I don't always deal properly.

They'll always let you down and it's up to you to keep moving.


	39. What do you regret?

**Ghosts. Some people believe in them and some don't. Tell us about ghosts and what you think of them. Have you had an experience with the undead? Do you think people who believe in ghosts need a nice vacation in the closest mental institution? Is it possible to be haunted or possessed? We want to know what you think. **

I don't know if I believe in ghosts, sometimes I'm afraid to believe in anything and other times I'm afraid not to. I do know that there was something that happened. Was that the ghost of my father that I saw on the beach and then into the jungle? I honestly have no idea; I could have been going crazy (it's still up for debate). I did see him and in a way that whole experience let me deal with his death. I hadn't really dealt with it and in a way I may never really deal and I may never stop blaming myself. Was it a ghost? Maybe it was just a delusion brought on my exhaustion and stress. Or maybe my dad was there and he led me to water in the caves. I don't know and I won't pretend to want to know, it's something that happened and maybe it will again. All I know is that coffin is still empty and my father is still dead.


	40. Write about a habit you can't break

**Tell us about your number one regret.**

My number one regret. I think I have too many regrets to actually count but there is one that stands out clearly in my mind. It sounds kind of absurd in my head when I think about how to say it. I should have chased her. See I told you it sounded absurd, now here's where I'm suppose to give details but as it goes getting into things too personally kind of petrifies me if you want to know the truth. It makes the lines from Miranda rights flit across my mind, "anything you say can and will be used against you." I've never actually heard the Miranda rights in context if you're wondering. No arrests under my belt, just a speeding ticket or two listed on my file in LA.

Fine, there's not much to loose at this point I guess. Running and chasing, two things I've never been good at doing. That day in the jungle when I was sure Kate had gone completely nuts before she kissed me I decided that I'd pushed her enough, that going after her would only make things worse but I don't think there's a second that goes by that I don't wonder what would have happened if I had just gone after her.

For all I know my instincts were right on and going after her would have ended up with me getting another beating to the chest or ruining any possibility for … well I guess possibilities, who knows.

But there are always those what if's, what if I'd held on tighter, what if I'd questioned more. What if I'd made her talk to me before things got so screwed up.

Now even thinking about it brings me to the day we went after Michael. Why isn't telling her she couldn't come my number one regret when it directly resulted in a gun to Kate's throat and my entire life to come flashing before my eyes in one empty millisecond? I think some part of me believes that if I'd gone after her when she ran, which she's so good at doing, that I wouldn't have been so angry and confused when everything came to a head. If I'd just chased her, gotten her to talk to me, gotten past the confusing and hurt and just been a man, none of the rest of it would have happened. It's like that expression, killing two birds with one stone.


	41. Talk about religion

**Write about a habit you find hard to break.**

Responsibility; trying to take it all on myself. I don't know how many times people have admonished me for not getting enough sleep or trying to hard to make sure everyone is safe and happy. For weeks I was trying to do everything and anything I could do to make sure people were feeling safe, I was running myself ragged trying and then Hurley builds a golf course and everyone felt safe. That was the first indication that maybe I couldn't do it all on my own.

I still do it though, take on everything, there's always this weight on my shoulders that I can't seem to let go of no matter hard I try or how hard other people try to lift it on their own. I know other people find me controlling and I know that on a lot of levels I really am just a glorified control freak but if I don't take responsibility who will? Maybe it's the years in medical school or the years in residency where you had to take responsibility, you had to make a decision and stick to it or it would cost other people their lives. I know that quality might be somewhat unattractive or annoying but it's something that was ingrained into me from childhood. Make the decision, take responsibility, stick to your guns or nothing you ever do will ever matter.

Leader status was not what I wanted when we crashed but somehow I slipped into the role. People put me here and I do what I can, I try to make things better for the small colony of people who survived the crash, I try to save lives and keep people calm and feeling safe. I try because it's all I know how to do. 

Responsibility is the habit I'll never be able to break.


End file.
